Published Paper Details:

The rapid transformation of the digital environment has changed not only how children communicate and participate online, but also how child sexual exploitation and abuse material (CSEAM) can be created, stored, shared and repeatedly circulated. Social-media platforms, messaging services, cloud infrastructure and, more recently, generative artificial intelligence have created digital spaces in which harmful material can travel across borders within seconds and remain accessible long after the original abuse has occurred. The continuing circulation of such material can therefore prolong the violation of a child's dignity, privacy and personal security. These developments raise an increasingly difficult legal question as to what extent should online platforms be held responsible for unlawful material that they did not themselves create but that is transmitted or hosted through their services? This question has gained particular significance in India following the Supreme Court's decision in Just Rights for Children Alliance & Anr. v. S. Harish & Ors., 2024 INSC 716, which adopted a broader understanding of digital possession in the context of child sexual-abuse material under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO). The Court's reasoning demonstrated the need to interpret child-protection law in light of contemporary digital realities. The issue has now moved towards a more complex institutional question. In 2026, the Supreme Court agreed to examine a plea concerning the possible prosecution of online platforms under POCSO in cases involving the hosting of, or failure to report, child sexual-abuse material. Although the proceedings remain pending and do not establish criminal liability against intermediaries, they bring into sharper focus the relationship between POCSO's reporting obligations and the conditional safe-harbour protection available under the Information Technology Act, 2000. Generative artificial intelligence further complicates this legal landscape. AI-generated images, manipulated photographs, synthetic videos and other forms of digitally fabricated sexual material involving children challenge conventional understandings of creation, possession and dissemination. This article examines these developments through the broader framework of intermediary liability, platform governance and digital constitutionalism. It argues that Indian law should move beyond the rigid choice between intermediary immunity and automatic platform liability and instead adopt a proportionate, capability-based model of responsibility. Under this approach, platform responsibility would be assessed in light of knowledge, technological capability, and degree of control, foreseeable risk and compliance with statutory duties. Such a framework can strengthen child protection while preserving the constitutional values of privacy, freedom of expression, due process and responsible technological innovation.